Chroming the Reaver Titan pistons

The very first step was to smooth the pistons surface as much as possible. The Alclad 2 highly metallic paints are SO shiny that every imperfection in the surface shows clearly. So… I used a Dremel and a fine grit abrasive buff.

As a test, to ensure I have good paint adhesion and am okay with the texture of the Duplicolor sandable primer, I primed the 16 toe pistons of the reaver titan. Because I want ‘resin->resin’ bonds when I glue the pistons in, the first step was to use adhesive putty (aka poster putty or blu tack) to cover the portions of the pistons that will glue in.

Next, I hit the pistons with several very light coats of primer, and let dry overnight. The following morning I checked, and had great adhesion! w00t!

I used very find (1200) grit sanding/polishing cloth to smooth out the paint finish as much as possible… then layed down a glass black basecoat (from alclad2) as prep for the chroming step.

Here you can see the bottle of paint I used, as well as the freshly painted toe pistons. In later pictures you’ll see the piston heads colored with standard acrylics, and the pistons proper painted with some thinned reddish brown oil paints to simulate ‘lube.’

Below are all of the reaver titan pistons after being chromed. The 16 pistons on the left have already had acrylic metallics (Vallejo chain mail with Games Workshop Badab Black wash) painted on the piston head.